China will have to pay the price for its overtures in Balochistan

The attacks in Balochistan this week, which coincided with a high-profile Chinese military official, General Li Qiaoming’s visit to Islamabad, assume great significance. It is one of nearly a dozen attacks in the last six years unleashed by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a radical Baloch organisation. The BLA explains these attacks as a response to the ubiquitous Sino-Pakistan nexus to put down the Baloch movement for an independent state. The attacks too showcase the umbrage the BLA has taken against the Chinese government, which has been Pakistan’s principal benefactor for decades.

The day of the attack, August 26, 2024, is symbolic as it marked the 18th death anniversary of the tallest Baloch leader, Nawab Akbar Shahbaz Khan Bugti. Many Balochs decry the Chinese involvement in the killing of Nawab Bugti in August 2006. It is essential to mention that Pakistan’s Deep State killed Nawab Bugti in a military operation a few months after President Pervez Musharraf visited China in February 2006, which preceded the killing of three Chinese engineers in Hub (Balochistan) in an attack by Baloch rebels.

The present attacks could, therefore, be precisely the BLA’s follow-up action (on Bugti’s death anniversary) against the Chinese Foreign Ministry delegation’s visit to Gwadar last month (July 2024). The Baloch people find something fishy about the visit by a Chinese delegation amidst massive protests in Gwadar by Baloch people against Pakistan over rampant human rights abuses, enforced disappearances, and the exploitation of Balochistan’s natural resources. The question arises how, despite the critical local situation, the Chinese delegation dared to initiate dialogue on phase II of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which the Balochs have been opposing tooth and nail since the day of its inception.

The Baloch resentment against China is well-known and decades-long. China’s all-weather friend is Pakistan, whom the Baloch people have been resisting since the illegal occupation of their territory in 1948. The Balochs consider Pakistan their sworn enemy. Hence, the enemy’s (Pakistan) friend (China) is an enemy. Consequently, several attacks have been against vital Chinese interests in Balochistan since early 2000 onwards.

Islamabad’s deliberate attempt to hand over power of attorney to Chinese companies to explore and exploit the natural resources in Balochistan has added fuel to the Baloch’s fury. Chinese companies started mining the valuable natural assets of the region without caring for the greater interests of the local people.

Further, China’s tacit support to Pakistan for its counter-terrorism efforts in the last couple of decades mainly targeted the dissenting population in Balochistan, which further aggravated the already tense situation. The so-called “iron brothers” made a steely resolve to suppress their enemies (especially the Balochs) with iron hands. The discontent against China grew further when the Pakistani Army killed Nawab Bugti. Till his death, Nawab Bugti not only fought with the Pakistani establishment to achieve independence of Balochistan but also remained a stumbling block to the Chinese bid to exploit its rich natural resources.

With the Sino-Pak agreement for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in 2015 and the subsequent inauguration of the Gwadar deep sea port in 2016, the Baloch people understood the Chinese intent to continue its expansionist designs in Balochistan even at the expense of the local people. This Pak-Chinese move left no option for the Balochs except to knock on the doors of international organisations and human rights organisations, failing which Baloch organisations such as the BLA launched a string of attacks against the Chinese people, projects, and personnel in Balochistan. China committed a grave mistake at this point. Despite knowing the discontent among Balochs, Chinese authorities ignored the grievances of the local Balochs and went on with their effort to build the CPEC.

Similarly, in complete chorus with Pakistan, China dubs the Balochs as separatists and terrorists. It even extends support to Pakistan’s much-avowed “kill and dump” policy against the Balochs. However, China and Pakistan maintain double standards on the issue of terrorism. They both profess something and practice something else. It is a pity that those who act against Chinese interests anywhere in the world, for example, the Balochs in Pakistan, even the Uyghurs, are known as terrorists. On the contrary, China wholeheartedly defends Pakistan-based dreaded terrorist Maulana Masood Azhar, who has been instrumental in several terrorist attacks in and around the region.

The Balochs also consider China an “oppressor”. The oppression and suppression of ethnic minorities like Uyghurs and Tibetans at the hands of China is a worldwide fact. The Balochs are the only people in Pakistan who have expressed solidarity with Uyghurs. Like the Balochs in Pakistan, Uyghurs have a similar fate in China’s Xinjiang region. China has imprisoned over a million Uyghurs in the so-called re-education camps in Xinjiang. According to some news reports, former Pakistani Army Chief General Aseem Bajwa had plans to establish detention camps for Baloch people similar to the ones in Xinjiang. It is essential to mention that Pakistan, as the nation most loyal to China, has not bothered about the Uyghurs but rather hounded them out in its territory, besides providing tremendous support to China’s counter-terrorism efforts against the Uyghurs.

On an exciting note, the Uyghurs show similar solidarity with the Baloch and even support them against the Chinese. At a conference organised by the Baloch National Movement in Berlin in September 2022, the World Uyghur Congress represented the Uyghurs. It described how both Uyghurs and Balochs have suffered under one common enemy, China. Few Uyghurs, who have spoken to this author sometime ago, feel elated when Balochs attack Chinese interests in Pakistan. Some Uyghur diaspora people celebrated the killing of Chinese at the hands of the BLA and even posted and reposted the BLA commander’s viral video on social media, threatening that the Chinese would have to pay a heavy price in the coming times.

The Balochs are not the only ones who oppose China, its designs, its overtures, and its pet project, the BRI. People of Kazakhstan, Malaysia, and Bangladesh in the past have strongly protested the Chinese bid to bring its engineers and workers for any infrastructural work in these countries, thereby breaking the promise of transforming the local economy and providing jobs to the local populace. The anger of the local Baloch people against an alien and aggressive force (China) misusing the region’s natural resources without benefiting them is well understood. Both the Chinese and Pakistani authorities must address the issues and concerns of the local people in Balochistan, or else they will have to bear the Baloch’s brunt in the coming times.

Mahesh Ranjan Debata teaches at the Center for Inner Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.